Liverpool were left shell-shocked by their Champions League collapse against Sevilla in midweek, squandering a three-goal advantage to draw 3-3, and how they recover mentally will dominate talk in some quarters ahead of this game. It shouldn’t - Chelsea have a much bigger obstacle to overcome with an overnight flight back from Baku and a day less to prepare.
The 4-0 victory over Qarabag might have been a stroll for Antonio Conte’s men, after the hosts suffered a red card and penalty double-whammy inside 20 minutes, but the logistics surrounding that fixture and the quick turnaround for Saturday's game seriously undermines their chances here. Back the home win at odds against.
In his post-match press conference, Conte revealed that his backroom staff would work through the night on the return leg of their 5,000-mile round trip, fine-tuning their plans for this match on the near six-hour journey before presenting their final plan in one full training session on Friday afternoon, then flying up to Merseyside straight after.
It’s not an unusual story; it’s a challenge almost every Champions League participant must navigate at some point. But it rarely ends well. Even wins against also-rans have to be ground out, often relying on an element of good fortune. In away games of this magnitude, draws are treated like holy grail. And that sets the tone for a hiding to nothing.
For Conte, this is all relatively new. In his two seasons juggling European football with domestic at Juventus, he never once experienced a three-day turnaround and was largely spared from the comparatively mild Wednesday-Sunday four-day alternative. Then, of course, he had no overseas distractions whatsoever in his first year at Stamford Bridge.
However, from those slim pickings on the peninsula, we can see that the Old Lady suffered a 1-0 loss to a struggling Roma side in February 2013, on the back of a 3-0 first-leg victory at Celtic in the Round of 16. The Giallorossi were ninth at the time with the second-worst defence in Serie A, yet they restricted Juve to just five efforts on goal.
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There’s no getting away from the fact that Liverpool’s second-half capitulation at the Sanchez Pizjuan was a bitter disappointment, but it was a performance that showed two sides. During the extra 24 hours they’ve had to reflect, the emphasis will surely shift back to their devastating attacking play in the opening 45 minutes.
Alberto Moreno was the chief culprit in Andalusia, making two errors of judgement to hand his boyhood club a route back into the game, shortly before being substituted. And taking him out of the firing line might be one action that immediately restores some confidence to the rest of the defence, by making the others feel absolved.
Klopp was roundly criticised for treating Dejan Lovren in much the same way following his nightmare 30-minute cameo at the start of the 4-1 defeat by Tottenham, but the Reds responded by keeping things extremely tight in their next four outings, in the midst of which the Croatian centre-back has been restored with no apparent damage to his relationship with the manager.
Besides, this doesn’t necessarily have to be about how jittery Liverpool are near their own 18-yard box, providing they control possession and territory as you would expect on home soil. Klopp blamed a general air of passivity as the underlying problem after the break in Seville. Given their favourable conditions here, he will surely demand an unrelenting intensity.
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Liverpool to beat Chelsea at 6/5
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